Should language teaching describe how a language is used, or how it should be used?
Articles on Sociolinguistics
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For many isiXhosa-speaking residents, disaster warnings arrive too late, or in language that is difficult to understand.
Exaggerating phrases and talking in a sing-song way can actually help, not make it harder, for young children to master speaking a language.
Seemingly meaningless adolescent slang isn’t “brain rot,” it’s linguistically normal, developmentally appropriate and a way of belonging.
Can you guess which languages score the highest for terms relating to ‘love’, ‘death’, ‘canoe’ or ‘sheep’? We made a tool to help you explore our extensive dataset.
The Traitors contestant Charlotte has lived in London her whole life but has adopted a Welsh accent to appear more trustworthy. Is this a reliable strategy though?
An embarrassing health condition is not a good place to start a conversation with the spouse of a workmate you’ve just met at a Christmas party. Here’s another approach …
We found that the usage of supposedly upper-class words varied, but not in a way that correlated with social class.
What the iconic musical tells us about accent prejudice and class.
Politicians have long used the phrase ‘I misspoke’ when backpedaling for verbal inaccuracies or blunders. Now it’s used as a euphemistic recasting of lying as an inadvertent mistake.
People can have their own personal dialect based on their own linguistic and social experiences.
Tower Hamlets’ recognition of Cockney as a “community language” celebrates the role that all English dialects play in shaping individual and community identities.
Gendered words can be offensive in certain contexts – it’s all in what’s being signaled, according to a sociolinguist
The word shows that language isn’t static, it evolves to reflect developments in a society.
Sociolinguists suggest that within the next century, 90% of the world’s languages will disappear, due largely to colonial languages dominating economies, education and governance.
It came about through sustained contact with native Spanish speakers who directly translated phrases from Spanish into English, a form of linguistic borrowing called ‘calques.’
The language question in Ukraine goes back centuries. It is deeply rooted in the history of old empires and Ukraine’s position as the borderland between the West and the East.
Colloquialisms such as barbie and smoko are like accents – part of the glue that sticks Australian English speakers together.
A new study of Australian media has found important cultural and social factors are omitted in reports about domestic violence. More must be done to improve understanding by journalists and audiences.
In Australia, the discussion around gendered violence is increasingly focused on diversity. However, policy and services continue to be based mostly on the experiences of white, Anglo-settler women.
Top contributors
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Roger J. Kreuz is a Friend of The Conversation.Associate Dean and Feinstone Interdisciplinary Research Professor, University of Memphis
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Postdoctoral Scholar of Linguistics, University of Oregon
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Senior Research Fellow of Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University; University of New England
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Professor of Linguistics and English, Florida International University
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Senior lecturer in Languages and Literature, Nelson Mandela University
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Professor of Computational Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
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Senior Researcher at the SARCHI Chair's Higher Education and Human Development Research Programme, University of the Free State
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Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
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Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick
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Post Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland
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Reader in Discourse Studies, Lancaster University
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Professor of Linguistics, English Language and Literatures and Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan
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MD/PhD Candidate, Wayne State University
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Professor of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh
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Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University